Artist Michael Rich’s landscapes are expansive and expressive. Inspired by the vast variety of New England settings and seasons, Rich’s work has been called “irascible,” but that is a word he likes.

“When I think of something irascible, I think of something unruly, a little wild. At its best, my work has a bit of that,” he says. “There’s an untamed aspect to New England, it’s never the same from minute to minute. As an artist, I try to capture that sense of changing light and the energetic forces of nature.”

Rich’s technique is as capricious as any New England day. His large paintings, oil on canvas, are mostly “improvised,” he shares. To understand light and landscape, Rich does studies in other media, such as watercolor, pastels, and mixed materials. He is a printmaker as well. However, once he begins a painting, Rich works without preconception, drawing on memories of particular places or points in time. 

“It is a strange way to work, not knowing where a picture is going,” he muses, adding he often doesn’t plan precisely what a picture will be when it’s finished. “I sink into the process, into colors and light that feel like a place to me, a place with some resonance. Something happens in a place, and it leaves something behind.”

The ripples from past events that Rich paints connect to facets of his personal history and are shaped by images of growing up summering on Nantucket....